The following is an excerpt from John Alexander's book, Stop Going to Church and Become the Church:
"A few years ago I was teaching at the Church of the Sojourners on love. I said that although Jesus taught that loving God is the first commandment, the New Testament in fact talks more about loving each other. Someone suggested I was injecting modern, secular humanism into the Bible.
"I denied it, but I promised to study the question. So the next week I used my handy Online Bible computer program to call up all the uses of the various Greek words related to love. Then for the next month I neurotically classified each verse. Was it a commend to love God or a command to love fellow human beings? My research took many, many hours, but I learned I was right--hands down.
"I also learned that I had missed the point. And had been missing it for fifty years.
"The point isn't that I'm supposed to love God. Nor is it that I'm supposed to love others. The point is that God loves me. That's the basic doctrine of the New Testament. And of the Old Testament.
"Which is a whole different story than I was telling. A much better one. A story of grace."
lol! I was going to add a note that I had this list of verses somewhere, but I wasn't sure where it had gotten to. Then I finished reading for the morning and went to put the "bookmark" back into the manuscript and realized that the bookmark is the stapled list of verses that John was talking about here! It's 11 pages of verses. If anyone's interested I could probably scan it and attach it as a pdf.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see that list. This is a topic I've been personally dealing with and could use any help I can get.
ReplyDeletePost it, please.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know..."
And ... 1st John 4:19-21.
Although we reserve the right to be ticked off with a brother (or sister) when they say something truly weird, and don't make it obvious that they're joking up front. But there is always forgiveness.
OK, I'll try to scan it later this afternoon. I'm eating lunch (toast with tomatoes from the yard, Colorado sweet onions and cheese. yum!) then heading off to a baby shower.
ReplyDeleteOoo. Can you scan the lunch in as well?
ReplyDeleteyes - it's not either/or, the loving God bit isn't isolated from loving your neighbour, the two go together.
ReplyDeleteand they all come as a result of knowing God's love for us.
1 John
ReplyDelete7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[b] into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us...
I very much believe that until we are [become] still, and KNOW that He iS God..and humble ourselves to receive His love into us [ which comes by/through the indwelling of God the Spirit in us], then we do not have his love to give...
to try to love from our own strength always falls short..
continual reserves/'topping up' is needed
how I know this in the last couple of years :(
I am weak..I can't love...
I can only pass on His love [even back to Him]
yes, definitely - absolutely impossible to do this on our own. I don't remember where I got this from and when, but I've carried with me in my mind the image of a teapot or a watering can - God pouring love into me so that I could then pour it on to other people. (that's the ideal - of course a lot of the time I forget to ask him for the necessary top-up, and then I end up spouting unloving stuff at people.)
ReplyDelete